


reprise

by bluesandbirds



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Dream Smp, Family Dynamics, Gen, Ghostbur, Memories, Pogtopia, l'manburg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27687323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesandbirds/pseuds/bluesandbirds
Summary: I am the who knows youI am the one who caresI am the one who's always been there.wilbur says he's forgotten.tommy's not about to let him go.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 34
Kudos: 391





	reprise

**Author's Note:**

> next to normal but in reverse  
> lyrics from "i am the one" and "i am the one (reprise)" from next to normal (my absolute favorite musical)
> 
> february 7th: did i randomly get the urge to edit and add sentences to this?? maybe?? so if youre rereading this for some reason and wondering that's that

The crinkling of papers and clinking of glass fills the hole Wilbur's claimed as his own.

A cardboard box of items brought over by his _friends_ , clues to a life he doesn't remember living.

It's a small box.

Scraps of cloth from a uniform of some sort, torn and still faintly smelling of smoke. Stacks of precisely bound leather diaries, pitch black ink spilled across the pages. Wilbur can't read the handwriting. The nice woman told him it's his.

Tentative fingers push aside trinkets and keepsakes, uncovering a picture frame. There's a fine layer of dust across the glass that doesn't go even when he blows across it.

He squints at the faces in the photograph, hoping those faded countenances will offer him some hint as to the man he used to be.

They just smile back at him.

He keeps the books and leaves everything else, photograph with the glass unsmudged like he found it.

_I am the one who loved you._   
_I am the one who stayed.  
I am the one and you walked away._

The box goes into a barrel, out of sight, out of mind.

He sits at the rickety table, volumes of old spread across the surface.

The sheer amount of books tells him that Wilbur Soot was a fan of literature.

Some of them are self-written diaries and others are works from poets or playwrights.

Apparently, he loved this country. Apparently, he destroyed it. (Or maybe it destroyed him?) The reasons and context of it all lost in the margins.

He's flicking through an annotated stageplay when something comes back to him. 

Bitter cold nipping at his exposed skin. A patch of warmth to his side. A deep, monotonous voice reading out.

_When beggars die there are no comets seen._

_The heavens themselves blaze forth the deaths of princes._

On the day Wilbur Soot died, there were fireworks. He wonders what that makes him.

_I am the one who waited_   
_And now you act like you just don't give a damn._   
_Like you never knew who I am_

There's the sloshing of water from outside. He looks when the door opens. It's the blond boy from earlier. 

_Child._

_Tommy,_ he recalls from his notes.

The _Tommy_ stares at him for a while and Wilbur's tempted to say _boo_.

He's dead, not stupid. He sees how the others look at him, how they flinch away, how they search for that spark of madness in dead eyes.

He's a monster.

His own son doesn't want anything to do with him. From what he can piece together about himself in life, he wasn't a good man. It's safe to say he wasn't much of a father either.

 _Niki_ is the only one who tries, talking about happy days and peacetime. When she speaks, he can smell bread and hear soft humming and feel warmth in his hollow chest.

Everyone else just holds their breath.

Maybe it's better this way.

-

Tommy looks at the man in front of him.

 _Ghostbur_ , as they'd nicknamed him.

He looks like Wilbur and moves like Wilbur.

He doesn't talk like Wilbur, softer with none of the harsh edges the war gifted him.

But as far as Tommy's concerned, that's his brother.

_I am the one who knows you._   
_I am the one you fear._   
_I am the one who's always been here._

Tommy knows his brother. Better than he knows the direction of the sun, the rhythm of his favorite music discs, the way Tubbo laughs. Because it's always been Wilbur and Tommy.

When Phil was living in his Hardcore world.

When Technoblade was too busy farming war.

When all the world turned their backs. It was Wilbur and Tommy.

He doesn't bother with the song and dance everyone's been doing for the past few days— politely worded introductions, gently testing the waters, blatantly ignoring the elephant in the room. Tommy dives straight in. "So you don't remember anything?"

Wilbur shakes his head. "I'm afraid not." An afterthought. "Sorry."

"Do you know me?" he asks. 

"I know what they told me. You're Tommy. We're brothers with Technoblade"—his lips twitch into a scowl at that name—"and Philza is our dad." 

Tommy narrows his eyes.

_I am the one who'll heal you._

"I don't believe you," he says, throws it out there with all the certainty he can muster.

The man at the table blinks. "What?"

Firmer, "I don't believe you."

He steps further into the little room, door closing softly behind him.

Wilbur chuckles nervously. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you."

_I know you'll tell me that I'm not worth a damn,_   
_But I know you know who I am._

Tommy presses on. "Absolutely nothing?"

Wilbur shrugs. "There are flashes. Little things that I've been trying to make sense of."

He huffs and moves forward, coming to a stop at the edge of the table. Blue eyes run over the stacks of books. Something flickers.

"So you don't remember SMPEarth?"

"SMPEarth?"

Tommy hums. "It's where we first met."

Wilbur frowns. "I thought we were brothers."

"We are," Tommy says quickly. "Just not like that." He continues. "I showed up at your base asking to be allies. Just some dumb kid with a loud voice. I annoyed you." A jagged laugh, all self-deprecation and hindsight. "We started a group with your friend, Charlie. You got a kick out of bullying me."

He reaches for a journal, giving his hands something to do as he cracks his soul open.

"We built bridges across the ocean. We argued. We laughed. Sometime before the end of it you started calling me your little brother. It was weird. Suddenly, I had this family of people who I thought hated my guts," Tommy says, "It was nice." Quieter, not meeting Wilbur's eyes, "I'd never—I'd never had a family before."

A beat of silence follows.

_'Cause I'm holding on_   
_And I won't let go_   
_And I want you to know_

Wilbur swallows. "Look, kid, I—"

Tommy clears his throat, cutting off whatever apology the man was about to offer.

"And then you joined Dream's server and it was so cool. We started a drug business together. And then a country. And we won a war." He flips around the book in his hands, showing a rough sketch of a flag. There's a faint smile on his face as he turns it back around, something nostalgic. "Do you remember me and you and Niki on her first day on the server? That was a good day."

Wilbur doesn't even have to answer before he keeps going.

"And that time Fundy pranked you by pouring sparkles on all your uniforms and you were pissed, but you let him get away with it anyways." A small laugh. "You were a fucking disco for the entire month after that." Tommy's eyes linger on a book peeking out from the bottom of the pile with a beaten and burned cover. "We built a park with Tubbo. We made fun of Dream. Jack Manifold and Tubbo started a space program." He sighs. "It was... it was good."

_I am the one who held you  
I am the one who cried_

Tommy lifts his head, looking directly into Wilbur's eyes. He stares for a long time.

Wilbur shifts uncomfortably.

Shoulders dropping, Tommy lets his gaze fall back to the history spread across this dead man's table. 

"It didn't stay good," he says at last, setting the book down.

He swallows, white hands pressed against the spruce wood.

Slowly, Tommy says, "Do you remember telling me that I was never gonna be president?

A hitched breath.

"You hated me then," Tommy says, "It was worse than SMPEarth, worse than the war, because it was just us and I think you lost something more than your title or your mind to JSchlatt." He sniffs, hands curling into fists. " _I_ remember."

The sun high in the sky. Schlatt's laughter shaking the entire world. Flashes of wide-eyed faces as they fled.

A cold, dark ravine. Sleeping with a crossbow under his bed. A ticking clock.

_I am the one who watched while you died._

Tommy remembers every last detail since the beginning to the end.

He remembers when the arrow went in. Remembers the numbness seeping into his body. Remembers Wilbur's eyes above him. His brother, always steadfast and stolid, looking terrified.

Large, warm hands that used to play him songs on the guitar pressed underneath his clavicle, desperately staunching the wound.

Tommy remembers the world crumbling to bits around him. Making eye contact with his father. And then only being able to scream as a diamond sword slid through Wilbur's stomach.

_I am the one who loved you_   
_I tried pretending that I don't give a damn_

It's these memories, the fire that bursts from his chest when he looks at this shell of his brother.

"Do you remember threatening to blow everything up? Do you remember making me fight Techno in the pit? Do you remember watching us on the day of the war with every intent to destroy it no matter what?" He gains in volume, in anger, in desperation.

"Do you remember?" Tommy shouts, voice filling the small stone room. " _Do you?_ Because I do! I remember every second! So, if I have to live with that, then so do you!"

His hand slams on the wooden surface. The table shakes as papers flutter and journals thud onto the cobblestone floor. His body heaves and he's only held together by the determination not to break any more for this man. Tommy swallows a mouthful of stale air.

_But you've always known who I am._

A shaky breath.

"Tommy... Theseus."

His brother gives him a sad smile.

"Hi, Will."

**Author's Note:**

> there's a concept floating around my head with next to normal and the discs as the music box or maybe noteblocks like what wilbur was playing on phils stream today but idk so have this
> 
> im just saying an animatic of this song with these two or even will and phil in the button room would fit so well...


End file.
